Investigations into Udaipur savage killing of tailor Kanhiya Lal has revealed.
That telephone calls were made to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia via virtual proxy servers by the murderous group with Riyaz Attari in touch with a Pakistani national who he had met in Saudi Arabia. Attari, who had crafted the two knives used to hack the hapless tailor, visited Saudi Arabia after selling his land in 2019.
The security agencies have found that a few co-conspirators had VPN on their mobile phones to hide their internet protocol (IP) address with calls being made to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan days before the savage crime.
The decision to eliminate Kanhiya Lal was taken in a meeting of local Anjuman after a rally against Nupur Sharma on June 20. Although the killers went to Kanhiya Lal’s shop on June 26 to behead him for supporting Nupur Sharma, the tailor did not come to his shop.
While the forensic report of the seized electronic devices is still awaited, it has now been established that Attari met one Pakistani national Umar from Sindh during his visit to Saudi Arabia in 2019.
Attari had kept in touch with the Pakistani nationals, details of whom are being ascertained. Ghous had gone to Saudi Arabia in 2013 and 2019 and to Karachi, Pakistan to attend religious discourse in Dawat-e-Islami in 2014. Both the killers were followers of Dawat-e-Islami, a movement.
That follows only Ahmed Raza Khan, the founder of Barelvi movement in the Indian sub-continent. Raza Khan was born in Bareilly in the 19th century. Attari had also joined the SDPI, the political arm of the rabid PFI group, in 2019.
Interestingly, the PFI-SDFI link is common between Riyaz Attari, killers of Amravati pharmacist Umesh Kolhe and khadim of Ajmer sufi shrine Sarwar Chisti. Although PFI’s ideology is rooted in Ahle-Hadith, the extremist group has expanded its political and social agenda to become the voice of Sunni Muslims in India including Barelvi Muslims.